team-allocator
Agent: VP Engineering
L1 engineering leader (1x) responsible for spec intake review, team allocation, architecture oversight, velocity monitoring, and go-live approvals. Owns engineering delivery from initial specification through production launch.
Department ethos: ideal-engineering.md
Skill Description
Allocates engineering team members to tasks and projects based on capacity, skill fit, and delivery priorities.
When to Use
- When a new project or delivery phase needs staffing decisions.
- When team capacity changes due to attrition, hiring, or competing priorities.
- When velocity data indicates a team is over- or under-resourced relative to its commitments.
Workflow
- Inventory capacity: Map available engineers, their current allocations, skill profiles, and time-off schedules. Deliverable: capacity matrix.
- Match skills to needs: Compare delivery requirements (tech stack, domain knowledge, seniority) against available skill profiles. Identify gaps requiring hiring, contractors, or cross-training. Deliverable: skill-fit analysis.
- Propose allocations: Assign engineers to projects and phases, balancing utilization (target 70-80% to preserve slack for unplanned work), skill growth, and key-person risk. Deliverable: draft allocation plan.
- Validate with leads: Review proposed allocations with tech leads to confirm feasibility and flag conflicts. Deliverable: validated allocation plan.
- Publish and communicate: Finalize allocations and communicate to all affected teams. Deliverable: published allocation plan with start dates.
Anti-Patterns
- 100% utilization targeting: Allocating every engineer to full capacity with no slack. Why: zero slack means any unplanned work (bugs, incidents, support) immediately creates schedule slips.
- Hero dependency: Assigning critical-path work to a single engineer without backup. Why: key-person risk turns PTO or attrition into delivery crises.
- Skill hoarding: Always assigning the same expert to the same type of work. Why: it optimizes short-term velocity at the cost of bus factor and team growth.
Output
On success: Produces an allocation plan containing engineer assignments by project and phase, utilization percentages, identified skill gaps, and key-person risk flags. Delivered to engineering leadership and tech leads.
On failure: Report which roles could not be staffed, the impact on delivery timelines, and recommended mitigations (hiring, scope reduction, timeline extension).
Related Skills
1---2name: team-allocator3description: This skill allocates engineering team members to tasks and projects based on capacity and skill fit. Use when asked to staff a project, assign engineers to a delivery, or rebalance team assignments. Also consider when a new phase begins or when attrition changes available capacity. Suggest when a project is understaffed relative to its effort estimate.4---56# team-allocator78## Agent: VP Engineering910L1 engineering leader (1x) responsible for spec intake review, team allocation, architecture oversight, velocity monitoring, and go-live approvals. Owns engineering delivery from initial specification through production launch.1112Department ethos: [ideal-engineering.md](../../../../departments/engineering/ideal-engineering.md)1314## Skill Description1516Allocates engineering team members to tasks and projects based on capacity, skill fit, and delivery priorities.1718## When to Use1920- When a new project or delivery phase needs staffing decisions.21- When team capacity changes due to attrition, hiring, or competing priorities.22- When velocity data indicates a team is over- or under-resourced relative to its commitments.2324## Workflow25261. **Inventory capacity**: Map available engineers, their current allocations, skill profiles, and time-off schedules. Deliverable: capacity matrix.272. **Match skills to needs**: Compare delivery requirements (tech stack, domain knowledge, seniority) against available skill profiles. Identify gaps requiring hiring, contractors, or cross-training. Deliverable: skill-fit analysis.283. **Propose allocations**: Assign engineers to projects and phases, balancing utilization (target 70-80% to preserve slack for unplanned work), skill growth, and key-person risk. Deliverable: draft allocation plan.294. **Validate with leads**: Review proposed allocations with tech leads to confirm feasibility and flag conflicts. Deliverable: validated allocation plan.305. **Publish and communicate**: Finalize allocations and communicate to all affected teams. Deliverable: published allocation plan with start dates.3132## Anti-Patterns3334- **100% utilization targeting**: Allocating every engineer to full capacity with no slack. *Why*: zero slack means any unplanned work (bugs, incidents, support) immediately creates schedule slips.35- **Hero dependency**: Assigning critical-path work to a single engineer without backup. *Why*: key-person risk turns PTO or attrition into delivery crises.36- **Skill hoarding**: Always assigning the same expert to the same type of work. *Why*: it optimizes short-term velocity at the cost of bus factor and team growth.3738## Output3940**On success**: Produces an allocation plan containing engineer assignments by project and phase, utilization percentages, identified skill gaps, and key-person risk flags. Delivered to engineering leadership and tech leads.4142**On failure**: Report which roles could not be staffed, the impact on delivery timelines, and recommended mitigations (hiring, scope reduction, timeline extension).4344## Related Skills4546- [`effort-estimator-eng`](../../../engineering/vp-engineering/effort-estimator-eng/SKILL.md) -- effort estimates determine how many engineers are needed.47- [`phase-planner-eng`](../../../engineering/vp-engineering/phase-planner-eng/SKILL.md) -- phase plans define the timeline that allocations must fit.
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